


Bilbo Baggins Already Died

by demetereoh



Series: All the Worst Ways to Die [1]
Category: The Hobbit (Jackson Movies), The Hobbit - All Media Types, The Hobbit - J. R. R. Tolkien
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Everyone Lives/Nobody Dies, BAMF Bilbo Baggins, Bilbo Baggins Dies, Fix-It of Sorts, M/M, Maybe - Freeform, Time Travel Fix-It, Time Travelling Bilbo Baggins, and besides he dies before this one happens, but!!, eventually, he then comes back to life, more than a little bit crazy bilbo baggins, so bilbo doesnt die really, so not really dead
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-04-17
Updated: 2020-04-15
Packaged: 2021-03-01 21:01:40
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,503
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23673517
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/demetereoh/pseuds/demetereoh
Summary: An ordinary Hobbit who got caught up in the whirlwind quest to reclaim a lost kingdom finds that when he dies, he wakes up back at the beginning of his quest, over and over and over again,  until Bilbo is sure he’s died in every way he could ever want to, and the curse shows no sign of letting up. Usually luck avoids him like the plague, but with this one thing it always seems to be with him, until it isn’t anymore. Things get even more difficult then.
Relationships: Bilbo Baggins/Thorin Oakenshield
Series: All the Worst Ways to Die [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1704619
Comments: 8
Kudos: 92





	Bilbo Baggins Already Died

**Author's Note:**

> Bilbo’s back in Bag End again, the market is lively as ever, and Gandalf doesn’t recognize the Hobbit he calls upon.

Bilbo Baggins was naturally left handed. As a child, he would be consistently told off for doing things ‘backwards’. He would eat with his fork in his right hand and his knife in his left, and have both snatched from him by his Grandmother, replaced on the opposite sides of him. Windup toys were permanently banned from his smial, due to the fact that he would try to twist them the wrong way and end up breaking them and potential injuring himself in the process. When it came time for him to write, the quill was pressed into his right hand, and every time he switched it to his left someone would yell. It got so bad that his father would sit next to him as he wrote out the alphabet and hold his left hand away from the paper. Left to his own devices as he got older, Bilbo taught himself how to write with his left hand, but only ever did it when he was alone, and stopped altogether when he reached his majority.

Even into adulthood, his right hand would cramp too quickly and his written words were far too sloppy for anyone’s standards. It wasn’t proper that his tea cups were always facing the wrong way, or that he’d place everything to his left when he was done with it. After his parents' death, he worked hard to condition himself to do everything right handed. 

He hadn’t had to worry about that with the dwarves. 

At least half of their company was left handed, if not more, and almost all of them could make do fairly well with either hand. As the journey went on, Bilbo acted on nothing but instinct (though he would be the first to admit that his instinct was something shy of useful), thus meaning that his left handedness shone through. By the time they got to the mountain, he could barely remember how to hold a quill in his right hand.

Each subsequent life after that he had not even attempted to be right handed. He hadn’t really thought about it, if he was honest with himself, far too concerned with the fact that he was alive, again, and in Bag End, again, and on that quest, again. 

He noticed it now, as he reached absentmindedly to pick up his coat before leaving Bag End, only to grab at empty air. He stared for a moment at his hand, and the spot next to the door where he had expected his coat to be. Then, slowly, he looked to his right. Hanging on a hook was his blue velvet coat, on the right side of the hallway, where it had always been. The years he had spent on the quest (because it was years to him, even if it was only a singular one to anyone else, and no time at all at the moment) had made him used to his coat being at his left when he took it off, as rare as that was. 

For some reason, this made him so frustrated that tears poked at his eyes. Then came a wave of anger, so strong that he pushed his hat stand over and didn’t flinch when the loud noise echoed through his hallway. 

It wasn’t proper, he once would have thought, not respectable, the neighbours will come knocking and he’ll have to explain himself. He’d have to be proper and respectable and ordinary little Bilbo Baggins, everything that his book of etiquette demanded he be. 

Once, that was all he could hope to be. Not to say that in his youth he wasn’t slightly more rambunctious than middle-aged him would have liked to admit, but as he passed his majority and stopped searching the woods for elves he settled down into his Baggins nature and let life run its course. His life was filled with pleasantries and afternoon teas, smoke pipes and pastries, anything and everything that a simple hobbit could desire. No adventures or whispers of odd goings-ons in the smial at the top of the hill, just good-old respectability.

He’d lost that, somewhere along the line. Probably as far back as the Misty Mountains the first time around, or maybe even the trolls. Certainly, anything even resembling that quiet life he had once led and tried so hard to maintain had been stamped out of him that first time he died. 

And each subsequent death had only nailed the lid on the coffin of him ever being able to fit-in in a place like Hobbiton ever again.

Not that he was of a mind to do that, the first couple times around. He’d been so grateful for a second, third, fourth chance that he’d been quick to fly out the door with his dwarves. Maybe too quick, considering how he’d become troll dinner at least twice. He had never wanted to know what it was like to be eaten alive, but he’d come to realize that he seldom got what he wanted. 

Somewhere around the sixth or seventh time he’d awoken in his feather bed in Bag End, he’d come to the conclusion that things had gone far better for him in his first life. Every other subsequent life he’d managed to get himself, and probably his dwarves, killed before they even reached Erebor. So, he made the logical decision to try to do things as similarly as he had then, and maybe just change how that final battle went.

And it had almost worked, too, had Thorin not actually thrown him from the rampart. By the Valar he spent the next few lives being unfairly mad at the king-in-exile, even if Bilbo had heard the shouts of regret the moment it had happened, and those dwarves weren’t technically these dwarves. But that logic fell on deaf ears. Let Thorin be on the receiving end of a seemingly unwarranted glare for once, the poncey faced bastard. 

It seemed, every time he did something that might be right, something else went wrong. He kills Gollum, a warg chomps his arm away on that cliff. He stays with the elves after giving them the Arkenstone, those bloody bats catch him up by his hair and toss him into the mountainside. 

He point-blank refuses to go on the quest, he trips and impales himself on the rake in his garden.

He was so unbelievably tired. Every single time he woke up to those stupid birds singing at his window he wanted to break down and spend the day wallowing in self-pity. Many times he did. 

But, the dwarves always came knocking. They were always manner-less, loud, boisterous, and so full of life that it hurt to remember their bruised and battered faces in any of his past grievances. Thorin always came late, showing his excellent directional skills, making Bilbo almost swoon with those blasted blue eyes. Insults often followed, words that would have once made him highly insulted and stutter, then angry and bitter, and then tired and regretful. 

None of those had really worked for him, so he made the decision that he was going to appreciate it all this time. Instead of running himself ragged trying to ensure everyone stayed alive and unharmed and away from the greatest dangers, he was going to have fun in their company. He would laugh loudly at Bofur’s jokes, let the princes prank him, fuel Ori’s desire for knowledge, maybe even let Dwalin use him as a battering toy to test his weapons on. 

Try to make Thorin smile more. 

But here he was, somehow having sunk to his knees just inside of his door, crying about being left handed, of all things. He’d almost made it through that morning without crying, which had never happened before, but that coat had to ruin all his good progress. Pressing his hands into the floor in an attempt to ground himself, Bilbo choked on his tears, desperately trying to stop the racking sobs in his chest.  _ Pathetic,  _ his mind supplied, as it had countless times before.  _ Are you not used to this by now? _

In truth, he should have been, could have been, would have been, wasn’t. He knew, deep down, that he was always going to return to Bag End, and he thought he’d made his peace with that. Death, no matter how hard it tried, couldn’t keep ahold of him. 

“Please,” he whispered into the floorboards, his voice choked and hushed under the sound of roaring blood in his ears. “I just want to go home.”

No, that wasn’t right. He was home. Wasn’t he? Or was home where the Valar were trying to get him? Somewhere on the road, with his dwarves, far away from the stifling community of the Shire. Perhaps that was his home, and his constant pleading for it during his first life had got through to one of the Valar and that was why he kept going and going and going.

If so, that Valar was cruel.

“Please,” he said again, pushing himself up so he was sitting. “I just want to rest.”

As usual, no one answered him. There was no movement near him, no sound of boats or snoring or whispers in a language he couldn’t comprehend. He hated silence, he thought. Then, he laughed. 

He never used to hate silence. He used to hate noise, anything louder than a breeze and birds chirping in the distance would get him ruffled. Now, anything less than the constant sounds of a band of dwarves made him ache in a way he hadn’t felt since his mother died. 

The tears dried soon enough, the anger disappeared along with the sadness, and the hat stand was righted in its new place, to the left of the door. His coat was shoved on, his pipe transferred from the right pocket to the left, the basket hanging from the crook of his right elbow. He opened the door, half expecting Gandalf to already be there, but when he saw the empty path of Bagshot Row, he walked down to the market place. 

The very market that he had been to during that first life and not enjoyed one bit because he was avoiding Gandalf, but had never seen this early in the morning. Sitting in the bottom of his basket was the notebook that he carried, containing every bit of information that he could remember from each of his lives, neatly divided into which death separated them. He’d added as much humor and facts as he possibly could to keep it both useful and entertaining enough that he thought of the whole thing as more of a tragic comedy rather than his actual lives. Charmingly titled, if he did say so himself ( _ Its Not Petty, Its Taking Precautions  _ a particular favourite of his due to the discomfort it told of Thorin, whom he was still a little bit annoyed with). One thing he had noticed when rewriting it, because as much as he wished it would the notebook wouldn’t die with him, was that he’d never actually decided to properly host the dwarves. Whether it was because he was so preoccupied with being alive again, a little bit shell-shocked from his latest death, or just too plain irritated and tired to care, not once had he cooked them a nice meal or stocked up his pantry extra full for their arrival. 

Even with his very un-hobbit-like nature, food was still something that Bilbo held very close to his heart. He’d also remembered the scraps that he was forced to eat on the journey and had promptly decided to treat himself, the dwarves getting some good food as well was just an added extra. 

So, with that epiphany that could have enlightened Smaug, Bilbo collected as much of his money as he could (he wouldn’t be needing it, after all, the contract did say something about all expenses paid) and planned to buy every stall up before he would have previously rolled out of bed.

And buy them up he did.

He started with the Cotton family stall, where many vegetables of varying sizes were piled high. His dwarves, Bilbo knew, would have little interest in the vegetables, but he himself was always rather partial to some greenery. 

“You’re up early, Master Baggins,” one of the Cotton family said. Bilbo couldn’t remember her name, it having been many years since they had last spoken. He remembered her round face and youthful smile, though, and many of her sisters’ faces being just like it, probably somewhere tending to the meat stall, or maybe the wheat one. 

“Yes, I suppose I am,” Bilbo said, looking around to see that some Hobbits were still setting up their stands. Dimly, he thought about trying to act as similarly to his old self as possible, but quickly dismissed it. He would be leaving them all in the morning, so him being slightly mad now would mean nothing in the wake of the madness that would indicate. “Or perhaps, I am just awake very late.”

The girl gave a start that had him smiling as he picked up some corn. “Did you not sleep at all last night, Master Baggins?”

He probably slept quite a lot last night‍, if last night was the night before Gandalf appeared and not the night before he got eaten by trolls. He found himself, almost unknowingly, channelling the old wizard. He could now understand his love of being purposely vague - it was good fun to mess with people.

“All night and not at all,” Bilbo replied, just as another girl called out for the one behind the stall. 

“Sadie!” The other girl said, looking almost exactly like her sister. Sadie stuttered out her sister’s name, Mabel, before Mabel noticed Bilbo. “Oh, I am terribly sorry Master Bilbo. What are you doing up so early?”

Bilbo remembered now. Sadie and Mabel, the Cotton twins, well, one set of them. Sadie was much more well-mannered, intended to one of Boffin lads, if he wasn’t mistaken. Mabel was quite a bit wilder, already having publicly announced that she would not, under any circumstances, marry any Hobbit that bought her flowers, because they lacked creativity. 

When he got home, he would draw them, Bilbo decided. Along with his mother and father, crudely copied from his memory, and several other people he thought important to the Shire. It helped, he had found, to have a small piece of his home to look back on, even as he ran away from it. 

“Ah but it is not early somewhere, which means it is not early everywhere, so not early at all, really,” Bilbo said, committing their rather confused faces to memory. His memory was something to be envied, he supposed, or something to be glad not to have, for he could remember most things rather well if he tried enough, which was why his book of lives was really rather accurate, even if he was the only one who could know. The downside to the good memory, of course, was all the bad memories that came with it (wriggling troll tongue for one (he retched at the thought) and being killed by the one he loved another, significantly worse memory).

_ You deserved it,  _ that helpful little voice said,  _ you deserved all of them. This is your punishment for- _

The voice never deigned to tell him what he was being punished for, for the Cotton twins had started giggling between themselves loudly, though at what Bilbo did not know. 

“I  _ told  _ him I wouldn’t want flowers!” Mabel said. “But then he asked what I would want instead, and I honestly don’t know!”

“You wanted him to be original,” Sadie sighed, looking over at Bilbo who was in no particular rush. He didn’t mind, really, if he spent so long standing at this stall that Gandalf had to wait half the day to see him (he no doubt would wait, the old bastard, because he always got his way (except with the trolls, but then that had been against Thorin, so what was one to do)). “Let him think of something.”

“But I can’t wait that long!”

“I’ll come back later for my greens, Sadie,” Bilbo said, rather enjoying the conversation but knowing he did have things to do. “Though, if it were me, I would accept a head of broccoli in place of flowers, much more useful. Or maybe a leek.”

He spent the rest of his time at the market that way, baffling the Shirelings with his nonsensical ramblings and riddled words. He collected more food than was able to fit in his basket, but he managed to borrow another from some Bolger or other, who would also get a drawing simply because of the large welt on his forehead, that Bilbo was sure was very very new. 

The market was a dangerous place, didn’t you know? Young hobbitlings were running about, playing tag, getting caught up in people’s skirts and stepping on their toes. Older hobbits who were trying to leisurely get their food were being tambled by haggard new parents, or those parents that had more children than letters in the alphabet. 

A strange memory from his first life - no, it would be from all his lives, because this is a memory from long before this morning, or this morning many years ago - popped into his head. His mother’s laughter filled his ears, and oh he missed that sound. All the laughter he had heard these past few lives had been low and rumbling, not high and tinkling like Belladonna’s. He was at her feet, just a faunt, giving her name after name for his little brothers and sisters. 

The ones who never came. Why did they never come?

The happy memory turned sour, dripped at the edges with a faded black. He hated when that happened.

A little brown haired boy wheeled into him at that moment, before skirting off in the opposite direction, two little girls rushing after him. He chuckled, not nearly as ruffled as he should have been, or the old him would have been. They were just children, after all.

They were all just children, really.

With that, he started marching back up the path towards the top of The Hill, his hill, where he wasn’t so surprised to bump into Gandalf, though he could have done without his wrapped bread tumbling to the floor. 

“Bilbo Baggins, you ought to watch where you are going!” Gandalf said, his old voice welcome and not so welcome all at the same time. Bilbo picked up his bread and started walking, letting Gandalf cock his head for a moment before following him.

“My sincerest apologies, oh tall one, my eyes were too far ahead and too far behind to see what might have been on top of me,” he said, smiling at Gandalf’s  _ humph _ . “Besides, I don’t take to the habit of craning my neck to see above, I prefer to look outwards.”

“An admirable quality, perhaps,” Gandalf said, probably intending to sound wise, but missing the mark for Bilbo knew he was just as confused as the rest of them, grabbing blindly at what he could and taking a guess at the next course of action. “Though one should take care to see what is at the end of their nose.”

“All that is at the end of my nose can be seen from the end of my days.” Bilbo opened his gate, holding it a moment to indicate to Gandalf he was welcome to follow. The old wizard did just that, if not with slight hesitation. “Welcome to Bag End, though I feel you have seen it before, have you not, Gandalf?”

“You remember me,” the wizard said, something wistful in his tone - or was it suspicious? Bilbo didn’t care enough to puzzle that one out. He would have rather told Gandalf he would be going on the quest right then and there, but the trouble it would take to explain that one was not worth the gain in time it might have afforded. “You are quite different than I expected.”

“I wonder what you did expect,” Bilbo said, glancing up at the mid morning sun and thinking that first life him had had the right idea with that pipe business. “Surely not an ordinary middle aged hobbit, after all those tales you told to corrupt me in my youth.”

Gandalf chuckled, in that annoying way that suggested he knew more than everyone else, even though Bilbo had the upper hand in this encounter. “I suppose I may have, or someone less… worldly.”

“It has been a great many years since you have been under The Hill, Gandalf,” Bilbo said, blowing some rather impressive smoke rings, if he did say so himself, the pipe held confidently in his left hand. “Who is to say what has happened in your absence?”

“Yes,” Gandalf said, and Bilbo knew somehow that he’d said the wrong thing.


End file.
